Skyline Drive

Dear Jessie and Mark,

The details of today are all below.  Read on, and know how much I love and pray for both of you.

Love,

Dad

Saturday, August 15, 2020
10:07 pm

No journal entry last night because Spencer, Emma and Camilla spent the night at Dad and Mom's house.  With only Neil and Isaac going to bed, they didn't need me to sit outside their door, and my normal journal writing routine got messed up.  Instead, we played catch outside in the back yard while Nathaniel sat on a blanket and enjoyed the evening.  Julie and Abbie worked on a card in Julie's craft room.

At work yesterday we finished our interviews for our new teller position and extended an offer to Aspen.  She accepted and starts on Wednesday.  It felt like I was really not very effective this past week at getting things done.  Too much time got diverted from making progress on the things I wanted to focus on.  Instead there were too many urgent items, some of them important, but not all, that took my time.  Next week has to be better.

Today was productive and fun.  We started with banana muffins served on the back deck with fresh peaches.  Then I replaced the chicken wire that had been broken down so now the chickens don't have the run of the entire back yard.  They are again confined to the animal domain.

After that was done, Spencer, Neil, Isaac and I joined Dad and went to Bret VanAusdal's cabin in Fairview Canyon.  He has more firewood than he wants and is trying to clear it off his property.  It is already cut and split.  We loaded a pickup truck full.  The drive there took just over an hour, and loading the truck took about 15 minutes.  Then Bret invited us to ride in their side-by-sides on a loop along Skyline Drive.  It was really beautiful.  Bret and Dad rode in the two-seater, and I went with the three boys in the bigger one.  Spencer got to drive for part of the time and loved it.  Then we had lunch with them and came back home.  I expected we would be back at 1:00, but it was closer to 5:00 when we returned.  And our woodpile now is so full I can't close the gate to it anymore.  I think we have 450 cubic feet of firewood.

After a standing dinner of whatever you could grab, we went to Dad and Mom's to celebrate Grandma Fry's 99^th birthday with a chocolate pudding dessert that was quite tasty.  When our girls got full, I finished theirs too.  Three servings was probably more than I should have eaten, but someone had to sacrifice.  😉

Thankful: I am thankful we had such a fun day together today and that we were safe.

Ministering: First thing this morning I worked on an email for the Self-Reliance program.  I need to finish it tonight and send it off.

More later…

Spencer thinks life is GOOD!